this is entirely common in numerous sports. The goal of March Madness is not to get the top 64 teams in the nation into the tournament, but rather the top tier teams and then they let in a ton of shifty conference tournament winners.
Anyone who knows anything about March Madness realizes this is a great thing. The upsets and Cinderella stories dominate the headlines of the first few rounds until the contenders take over. Sometimes Cinderella teams make a deep run and it's amazing.
Now, obviously it's much harder to make a Cinderella run in cross country, but the goal is national representation, not to make sure the 78th best Californian runner gets in instead of the 37th best guy in New England.
But why does NY get all the fourth-tier conference tournament winners and why is Colorado and Utah the equivalent of the ACC or SEC or whatever? NY happened to be very good 15 years ago and so as a relic of that it gets its own region. But it is totally out of whack now. This year, the team that got 4th at the NY region (Bronx Science) was beaten at Eastern States by a team that wasn’t good enough to make the Championship, which means top 30, at Southwest (TCA). The last few years, the scores of the SW region winners are higher at the region than they are at NXN, which means the SW region is literally more competitive than NXN. American Fork’s coach did a full analysis of this on the SW thread a while back. It’s as crazy as it sounds. At some point, you need to do some adjusting to make things more balanced.
It was just a matter of time that somebody would declare NXR Southwest better than NXN. This argument is off the charts of Letsrun bonkery. Here are some facts: - Until last year, athletes in the northeast had to choose between FL and NXR as they were the same day. - Qualifying for each region is not the same. California is still in a tough spot. The Northeast/NY has improved by moving NXR a week earlier but that is a recent development (last year, I believe) - Courses in every region are all similar except the NY and NE. Bowdoin has a massive hill. Again, until last year, NE/NY had to run on a challenging, slow course 4 days before hopping on a plane for NXN. - CBA has had some tough races in recent years. I do not think that is indicative of their actual level. - In the past few years, the northeast has done very well at Footlocker, including the past 2 winners. The 2023 winner, Drew Griffith, was one of the best in USA history on the track. - Last year, the northeast was 5th and 8th at NXN. - There are countless athletes from the northeast that have done well at the NCAA level, contrary to another post on this thread - Langon, Murphy, Martin are just off the top of my head from recent years. - Track times in the northeast are as good as anywhere else, considering the late spring/early summer humidity. - Open enrollment in some states is a huge advantage. I saw NJ is allowing recruiting, which is also an advantage.
Here is the reality:
The southwest is good right now because the coaches are good. Doug Soles moved to Utah. That move added a consistently good program to the region. The year before the pandemic, California was 1-2. Doug left, Brosnan left for college. Cali is no longer as good. American Fork has been well coached for decades. Niwot is mixing an incredible pedigree with great coaching. All of these regions will rise and fall. Nike is not going to make knee jerk reactions to complaints and bonkers comments about a region being better than NXN. Also, adding NY to the NE is not an option. It is way too big. Anyway, these are kids. Stop telling them they stink.
Blair Bartlett ran a 17:00 at Bowdoin Park, which would be a qualifying time in regions on FLAT courses (exact opposite of Bowdoin). She also beat Addy Ritz at Penn Relays. She is the NXN favorite. Mackenzie Skelly was 2nd: middle school mile record holder. Union Catholic, the champion team, is ranked #3 in the nation. Champlain also ranked (number been changing). 3rd place Penn Charter team also has lots of talent. They may get an at-large.
Blair Bartlett ran a 17:00 at Bowdoin Park, which would be a qualifying time in regions on FLAT courses (exact opposite of Bowdoin). She also beat Addy Ritz at Penn Relays. She is the NXN favorite. Mackenzie Skelly was 2nd: middle school mile record holder. Union Catholic, the champion team, is ranked #3 in the nation. Champlain also ranked (number been changing). 3rd place Penn Charter team also has lots of talent. They may get an at-large.
Doesn’t sound like a joke to me!
Maybe it's hard to tell between NE and NY or they don't teach that up there in the Northeast....but the post is about NY being a JOKE, which it is......noone said that NE teams aren't legit.
Cry me a river about all the Colorado and Utah teams that take advantage of their state's lax school districting rules.
If New York's rules were like that, there would be one girl's super team from the Albany area that would NEVER lose NXN.
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Alden and East Aurora are tiny tiny schools in western NY (less than 600 kids each) in towns rights next to eachother. If they just had a combined team they would have a team with all 5 guys over 180.
Blair Bartlett ran a 17:00 at Bowdoin Park, which would be a qualifying time in regions on FLAT courses (exact opposite of Bowdoin). She also beat Addy Ritz at Penn Relays. She is the NXN favorite. Mackenzie Skelly was 2nd: middle school mile record holder. Union Catholic, the champion team, is ranked #3 in the nation. Champlain also ranked (number been changing). 3rd place Penn Charter team also has lots of talent. They may get an at-large.
Doesn’t sound like a joke to me!
Maybe it's hard to tell between NE and NY or they don't teach that up there in the Northeast....but the post is about NY being a JOKE, which it is......noone said that NE teams aren't legit.
To be fair and completely honest, NY could and should cut the population of this race in half. For the females, the bottom half, if not 3/4 even, were not good and muddied the caliber of the event.
But why does NY get all the fourth-tier conference tournament winners and why is Colorado and Utah the equivalent of the ACC or SEC or whatever? NY happened to be very good 15 years ago and so as a relic of that it gets its own region. But it is totally out of whack now. This year, the team that got 4th at the NY region (Bronx Science) was beaten at Eastern States by a team that wasn’t good enough to make the Championship, which means top 30, at Southwest (TCA). The last few years, the scores of the SW region winners are higher at the region than they are at NXN, which means the SW region is literally more competitive than NXN. American Fork’s coach did a full analysis of this on the SW thread a while back. It’s as crazy as it sounds. At some point, you need to do some adjusting to make things more balanced.
It was just a matter of time that somebody would declare NXR Southwest better than NXN. This argument is off the charts of Letsrun bonkery. Here are some facts: - Until last year, athletes in the northeast had to choose between FL and NXR as they were the same day. - Qualifying for each region is not the same. California is still in a tough spot. The Northeast/NY has improved by moving NXR a week earlier but that is a recent development (last year, I believe) - Courses in every region are all similar except the NY and NE. Bowdoin has a massive hill. Again, until last year, NE/NY had to run on a challenging, slow course 4 days before hopping on a plane for NXN. - CBA has had some tough races in recent years. I do not think that is indicative of their actual level. - In the past few years, the northeast has done very well at Footlocker, including the past 2 winners. The 2023 winner, Drew Griffith, was one of the best in USA history on the track. - Last year, the northeast was 5th and 8th at NXN. - There are countless athletes from the northeast that have done well at the NCAA level, contrary to another post on this thread - Langon, Murphy, Martin are just off the top of my head from recent years. - Track times in the northeast are as good as anywhere else, considering the late spring/early summer humidity. - Open enrollment in some states is a huge advantage. I saw NJ is allowing recruiting, which is also an advantage.
Here is the reality:
The southwest is good right now because the coaches are good. Doug Soles moved to Utah. That move added a consistently good program to the region. The year before the pandemic, California was 1-2. Doug left, Brosnan left for college. Cali is no longer as good. American Fork has been well coached for decades. Niwot is mixing an incredible pedigree with great coaching. All of these regions will rise and fall. Nike is not going to make knee jerk reactions to complaints and bonkers comments about a region being better than NXN. Also, adding NY to the NE is not an option. It is way too big. Anyway, these are kids. Stop telling them they stink.
Bowdoin's not just one hill.
If only they ran NXN at Bowdoin, then y'all would see what's up and how good the east coast kids really are.
The Bowdoin Park course appears to be by far the toughest (hilliest) of the regional NXR courses, so comparing times is an apples-oranges situation. It also funnels to a very narrow trail pretty quickly, and I think that affects the times as well.
Cry me a river about all the Colorado and Utah teams that take advantage of their state's lax school districting rules.
If New York's rules were like that, there would be one girl's super team from the Albany area that would NEVER lose NXN.
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Alden and East Aurora are tiny tiny schools in western NY (less than 600 kids each) in towns rights next to eachother. If they just had a combined team they would have a team with all 5 guys over 180.
though they all ran like crap at nxr. and make no mistake about it, every talented runner within 30 mins of east aurora would run for them if they had that choice.
He’s probably talking about a 17:30 boy on a NY NXN qualifying team. Both North Rockland and Ward Melville have a guy in their top 7 who ran in the 17:40s at Feds
Times aren't much different than NE teams, besides CBA, who can recruit the best of the best.
CBA is literally known for their ability to develop guys. They aren't Niwot or Crater with one of the best feeder programs in the country. 1 freshman under 17 and 4 under 18 is not exactly crazy. And this is a faster freshmen class than they usually get. And in any case most of their top guys come from Christian middle schools in the area(at least that's how it was a couple years ago and I don't have much reason to think it's changed).
Times aren't much different than NE teams, besides CBA, who can recruit the best of the best.
CBA is literally known for their ability to develop guys. They aren't Niwot or Crater with one of the best feeder programs in the country. 1 freshman under 17 and 4 under 18 is not exactly crazy. And this is a faster freshmen class than they usually get. And in any case most of their top guys come from Christian middle schools in the area(at least that's how it was a couple years ago and I don't have much reason to think it's changed).
Many CBA top guys have never run before high school. CBA has an annual “Heath freshman run” every fall to get more CBA freshmen out for the team. And some of their former top guys didn’t do XC freshman year. Like Tim McInerney did soccer freshman year, and when he joined freshman track he stuck with running from there.
Times aren't much different than NE teams, besides CBA, who can recruit the best of the best.
CBA is literally known for their ability to develop guys. They aren't Niwot or Crater with one of the best feeder programs in the country. 1 freshman under 17 and 4 under 18 is not exactly crazy. And this is a faster freshmen class than they usually get. And in any case most of their top guys come from Christian middle schools in the area(at least that's how it was a couple years ago and I don't have much reason to think it's changed).
So it's not the case that all of the talented NJ running boys are recruited there while the girls recruit to UC? Or only half of this is true?